Whatever happened to the Provo I once knew?

Last night I was talking to a friend who had recently lived in Utah and I brought up some of my experiences while living there and some of the places that I remembered. He lived in Provo for about two years and had moved back to AZ about a year ago. I had lived there waaaay back when....back in 1999/2000 to be exact. So yeah, more than ten years ago!

One of the places I have some of the fondest memories for is this old grocery store I used to shop at near my apartment complex called Reams. It was a unique grocery store in that it was housed in an old ice skating rink, and thus it had a unique dome shape. I remember Reams well because they had some of the cheapest (and worst) produce. But being the poor kid I was, it was a great place to find food on the cheap. I made friendships with other people I met while shopping there, and once a girl even offered to drive me home when I had bought too many groceries. (I didn't have a car when I lived there.) The funny thing was I lived within walking distance across the street in the "Ghettowood" aka Glenwood apartments. My friend didn't remember any round building but he knew of Reams. So today I looked up Provo on Google Maps and saw for myself. Indeed, the Reams building was demolished in 2007 and now there are some other buildings there. I found an article on the demolishment (is that even a word?! haha)

Here is a picture of the old building:

Provo changes quickly, and I'm sure there are a ton of new buildings. and if I were to go there today I'm sure It would look very different than what I remember. Well, here's to old memories!

Plant Update

So below is a picture of my plants now that they've started popping up. The Yellow Squash and Zucchini seeds popped open almost immediately after five days, but for a while I thought perhaps my tomato seeds were dead because there were no signs of them. After a while I started digging at the tomato pot soil seeing if there was actually anything going on in there or if I should just try and plant some more. As I dug a little bit, I was pleasantly surprised to find two little green stems popping up out of the soil! I was relieved and immediately left them alone. Now they have emerged, although you can't see them in these photos.

Here is the yellow squash:

 My sister and her husband gave me this bird feeder for Christmas. I was surprised, because it was kind of the last thing I expected to get from them. I've never really shown a fondness for birds, but I thought it was nice and it would be another way to bring some life to the back yard. I know it looks empty, but I promise there are seeds on the bottom! I've had it up for about 2 weeks now, but no birds have either discovered it, or they have no interest in it. So...I don't know if I want to just leave it up or take it down until I find another place where it will find more use.

This picture below is a quick piecing together of what our backyard looks like. Looks a little barren, right? Those green things are weeds, and as you can see there is a lot of sandy, rocky dirt. Something must be done! The blue bin you see at the far end on the left is my roommates compost bin.

My new urban garden!

For a while now, I've wanted to spruce up my apartments backyard. When I first moved here, there were two cute pink young Bougainvillea plants growing back there. But aside from these there was nothing but a barren landscape of rocks and sand where according to rumors, there once was a pool which had been filled in. During the hottest summer months our backyard feels much akin to Death Valley, with heat radiating off of the unforgiving martian landscape. I was in doubt much of anything could possibly be grown out there, let alone in Arizona period. After a while a few weeds sprouted up, and once I even affectionately reffered to them as "the lawn."

I was even more disheartened when one of the Bougainvilleas died from roving poison from some nearby weeds and then the other died from (can you believe it?) a frost a few weeks back. Had I known how cold it would have been, I would have covered it. But alas, I had forgotten all about it and later found the poor thing dead. It made me pretty sad, because I had been watching it's growth progress through the year and a half that I have been living here.

I talked to a coworker one day who told me that he is able to plant all kinds of things here, and that it's very feasible. So now I've decided to start growing a few things. Not a lot, but probably a few of the hardiest vegetables. So after doing a little bit of research, I bought three 5 gallon buckets, some seeds and dirt. I've decided to start with a zucchini, yellow summer squash and tomato plant. I'm starting them out kind of early I think, but it's been in the 70's for a while now, and I think that it will be warm at night when my plants get to be larger. I planted two tomato seeds because they were so small, I wasnt sure if they would both even survive! It's hard to believe that seeds can even become such large plants.

I also had 3 pots I bought on sale at Joann Fabrics and so I also bought some flowers which were surprisingly cheap. I think I may have bought too many though, because they seem a little crowded in their pots. Hopefully it wont negatively affect their health.

Such pretty flowers, I love these ones!

Even our residential neighborhood cat Sasha loves to smell the flowers!

And now here are my vegetables:

There they are in their little pots. I planted them on the 15th and they have sprouted. I'll post pictures of them later as I keep up on their progress.

First post on my new blog!

I've started this blog to share pictures and events with friends and family. Since I already keep a regular physical journal, I probably wont be posting any deep stuff here. So I have no idea if this blog will be very interesting! I had a difficult time trying to think of a name for my blog, because all the names I could think of sounded strange and would need some explanation. So then someone told me, "why not just name it: needs no explanation?" It sounded good to me, so I took it! And thus, my blog was born.

And for people who don't know anything about me, I'm a late 20-something female art student on a leave of absence until I gain residency where I live. I'm interested in painting, drawing, collecting things, studying the stock market, antiques, fashion, nerdy stuff, just about everything really. I live in the sunny land of Arizona and I moved here from New York City about a year and a half ago. So don't be surprised if I mention NYC occasionaly!